


E133

by symphorine



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Fluff, I mean yeah tsukki's there for like five sentences, Pre-Relationship, i guess, lab partners au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5866702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphorine/pseuds/symphorine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So the teacher had decided to shake the usual groups a bit. That was fine. Totally fine. Yamaguchi could totally deal with this. He <i>could</i>, he repeated in his head as Yachi slowly made her way to his table, her white coat a little too big for her, sleeves rolled up a little. Tsukki’s snickering behind him was <i>really not helping</i>.</p><p>“H-Hey,” Yachi said.</p><p>She began fidgeting with her pen, and Yamaguchi hoped his brain could come up with something to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	E133

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mei_tan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mei_tan/gifts).



> prompted by [Milly](http://bluekittxn.tumblr.com) again with "yamayachi + lab partners au ??" so yeah. honestly just 1.5k of blushing and smiles. didn't reread so there are probably typos left, sorry!

So the teacher had decided to shake the usual groups a bit. That was fine. Totally fine. Yamaguchi could totally deal with this. He _could_ , he repeated in his head as Yachi slowly made her way to his table, her white coat a little too big for her, sleeves rolled up a little. Tsukki’s snickering behind him was _really not helping._

“H-Hey,” Yachi said.

She began fidgeting with her pen, and Yamaguchi hoped his brain could come up with something to say.

“I’m glad we’re partners today,” he blurted, feeling the tip of his ears redden.

He prayed it wouldn’t go further. It was difficult enough to keep his composure when Yachi was sitting right next to him and he didn’t have anything else to concentrate on yet. How did Tsukki manage to keep a straight face all the time around _his_ crush?

“Oh! No, really, you shouldn’t expect too much, I don’t make a great lab partner,” she stammered, waving her hands nervously.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Yamaguchi tried to assure her.

Their conversation was cut short as the professor started to explain the experience they had to prepare that day. Yachi listened intently, nodding and taking notes of everything that wasn’t written on their sheets already. Yamaguchi listened a little less, sneaking glances over his lab partner about every ten seconds, before shaking his head and focusing on their teacher again.

They were soon left to start the experiment by themselves.

Yachi looked at the blue liquid - it was called E-hundred-something? - that they would be using, distillating and then measuring the light going through it. Or something. Yamaguchi was more concerned about the way her hands were slightly shaking and the way she was looking at the thing, like it was going to explode in her face.

“Uhm, do you, maybe, do you want me to handle the manipulations?” he offered.

“No, no, I’m- I’m-”

She was getting paler but took a sudden, deep breath and grabbed her pen with determination, giving a defiant look to the ustensils before turning to Yamaguchi.

“So, uhm, we need to calculate the exact amount of water and the E133 we need in every dilution,” Yachi started, sounding a little more assured as she talked, her voice firmer, though she was still playing nervously with her pen. “I can do that while you prepare the material for the first one? It shouldn’t take me long.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Yamaguchi answered with a faint smile.

He didn’t get to work immediately though, instead staring at his partner as she focused on her sheet and frowned - in a way eerily reminiscent of Kageyama. She seemed to run over in her head the process she would need to use, then put her pen on paper and started writing. The sound snapped Yamaguchi out of his trance, and he turned on his chair, grabbing the tools they’d need for the first manipulation, careful not to knock over the glass tubes. As promised, Yachi was done after barely two minutes of calculations, and when she looked back up, everything was in place in front of them. She started fidgeting again, and Yamaguchi was going to break her nervous silence when she spoke up.

“That’s the amou- oh my god, sorry!” she exclaimed when her pen escaped her fingers and almost hit Yamaguchi in the nose, only stopped by his instinctive block.

Being used to the risk of taking volleyball spikes in the face was, after all, a good way to sharpen your reflexes.

“It’s alright, Yachi-san. You were saying?” he smiled, giving her pen back.

“I marked the amounts of each we need there,” she explained, sliding her sheet between them.

Yamaguchi scooted over, leaning in with her to see what she had written, feeling his whole face heat up at their proximity. Their shoulders pressed together, they quickly recapitulated what they would do, ignoring the light tremor in both their voices.

Finally, they leaned back and sat straight, but didn’t return to their original places. Everyone around them was more or less on the same step, starting the manipulation. Yamaguchi turned back to see Yachi eyeing the blue liquid warily again.

“Let’s start from the higher concentration,” he proposed, already reaching for the calibrated pipette.

Yachi nodded and, very carefully, brought the E133 in front of Yamaguchi, before grabbing the plastic bottle containing the clear water for herself. She used a graduated test tube, setting it perfectly upright before squeezing the bottle, filling the tube up to the precise mark they needed.

“Could you tilt it a bit my way please?” Yamaguchi requested, holding the long tool full of blue colorant in front of him.

“Sure!”

They finalized the first dilution and proceeded through the other five, Yachi always overly careful when she handled the tools made of glass. They traded light talk, mostly about the volleyball club, and stole a few shy glances between manipulations. The teacher complimented them when they finished, not having spilled a single drop on their table, and showed them how to use the measuring machine before moving on to another group.

“Do you want to start?” Yamaguchi offered.

“I think it would be faster if we did all the mesures together,” Yachi replied.

Yamaguchi almost expected her to lower her eyes - she did that a lot, when she contradicted someone - but she kept her eyes leveled with his. They were light brown, a nice shade against her blonde hair, and very pretty, crinkling slightly whenever she smiled, even if it was just a small stretch of her lips.

Yamaguchi came back to the present situation and cleared his throat.

“Okay. I think we need to stand up for this one, it’ll probably be easier.”

“Maybe we should order the machine containers and our tubes the same way? So we don’t lose track of the concentrations.”

“Good idea!”

They stood up at the same time. This time their shoulders weren’t pressed together, their heights too different, but they still made contact a few times, arm brushing again side, fingers scraping when they passed the containers to each other. Yamaguchi felt a rush of warmth everytime but tried to brush it off. It proved quite difficult, however, when he noticed Yachi staring at him a few heartbeats too long, diverting her eyes with a blush when she realized she’d been caught.

The measures didn’t take long, and soon they were sitting again, waiting for everyone else to be done too. Yachi let a relieved sigh escape her lips when they were done with cleaning their station and putting everything away, the only thing left on the table being their results.

“Were you really that afraid of messing up?” Yamaguchi teased lightly.

“Well, uhm, last year I- I knocked over a whole table of glass tubes and beakers and all that, so I’m not. I’m not very relaxed around them anymore,” she laughed, actually laughed, a clear sound just low enough for Yamaguchi to be the only one to hear it.

He gaped a few seconds before finding anything to reply.

“Well you shouldn’t, you did everything perfeclty,” he stammered.

“Thank you.”

Silence came back, comfortable as they idly kicked their feet under their seats. Not a minute later, the teacher was back in front of the class and going over the most common mistakes the students had made during the manipulations. She then signalled that they could take their white coats off, and collected their result sheets.

Yamaguchi watched as Yachi neatly folded her coat before putting it away. His own was messily shoved in a corner. He hesitated as she slowly gathered her things, before a surge of courage helped him speak.

“Yachi-san, do you want to eat together today?” he said, biting his lip.

“Oh! I promised to Kageyama-kun and Hinata-kun that we would eat lunch together,” she answered, visibly flustered.

Yamaguchi tried to hide his disappointment with a smile.

“It’s okay, don’t wo-”

“But I’d be happy to do that tomorrow,” she added, wringing her hands, her eyes lowered this time. “If that’s alright?”

Yamaguchi felt another, genuyine smile appear on his face.

“Yes, of course,” and Yachi looked up at that, meeting his eyes for the umpteenth time that day, before answering with a smile of her own.

“See you later then,” she said, beaming at him before leaving their classroom.

Yamaguchi watched her leave, pretty certain there was a blissful expression on his face right then, but he didn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed about it.

“ _Finally_ ,” Tsukki sighed right behind him.

He was rolling his eyes when Yamaguchi turned, but there was a hint of a smile on his face, and he only playfully elbowed his friend in retaliation.

“Shut up,” he muttered as Tsukki dodged, to happy to really care.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on [tumblr](http://ldiote.tumblr.com/post/138375232499).
> 
> the experience is one I did in high school btw, and E133 is a colorant used in curaçao, which can in turn be used for coloring cocktails I think? as my dad (who was a physics teacher at my high school) told me, they had bought several bottles of curaçao for the manip and when they were done, they drank what was left. it's apparently not that good on its own. but I remember it being a very pretty color.


End file.
